970 



TETZEL, JOHANN. 



TEXEIRA, PEDRO. 



980 



TETZEL, JOHANN. [TEZEL, J.] 



TEXEIUA, or TEXERA, JOSEPH, was born of a good family in 

 Portugal, about the beginning of 1543. After distinguishing himself 

 at the university, he entered the order of St. Dominic in 1565, and 

 obtained general respect for his learning and virtue. He was prior of 

 the convent of Santarem in 1578, when King Sebastian undertook his 

 expedition into Africa. 



In the troubles which ensued, Texeira attached himself to the party 

 of Don Antonio, and accompanied that prince to France in 1581, 

 where he went to solicit assistance against Philip II. Texeira pub- 

 lished at Paris, in the beginning of 1582, a compendium of the history 

 of Portugal. The work is very scarce (it is described as a thin quarto 

 of 70 pages), and appears to have been published for the purpose of 

 supporting Don Antonio's claim to the throne of Portugal. The 

 author was taken prisoner by the Spaniards in the naval battle off 

 Terceira on the 26th of July 1582, and carried to Lisbon, whence he 

 contrived to make his escape and rejoin Don Antonio. Duard Nonius 

 a Leone, a converted Jew, employed by Philip II. to refute the ' Com- 

 pendium of Portuguese History/ asserts that Texeira, while a prisoner 

 at Lisbon, denied to him that he was the author. 



The partisans of the League having obliged Don Antonio to quit 

 Paris, Texeira accompanied him as his confessor, first to Bretagne, and 

 in 1586 to England. In 1588, having returned to France, he was 

 introduced to Henri III. and the queen-mother: the former appointed 

 him a court chaplain; the latter despatched him on a confidential 

 mission to Lyon, then in the possession of the League, believing that 

 a Dominican friar was unlikely to be suspected of being an agent of 

 the court. Texeira remained at Lyon from July 1588 to January 1589. 

 During this interval he prepared for publication a reply to the attack 

 upon his History by Nonius a Leone. This pamphlet, or some indis- 

 creet expressions iu conversation, having given umbrage to the 

 Leaguers, he was obliged to fly ; the papers left in his cell were 

 seized, and the whole impression of his pamphlet (with the exception 

 of one or two copies) destroyed. He rejoined Henri III. at Tours, and 

 after the murder of that prince, in August 1589, was continued in his 

 office of court-chaplain by Henri IV., to whose service he attached 

 himself. After the entry of Henri into Paris, Don Antonio was 

 enabled to return to that city, and Texeira appears to have resumed 

 his office of confessor. In March 1595 he published a new edition of 

 the work which had been destroyed at Lyon ; but his labour was in 

 vain, for he was called, in the August following, to perform the last 

 service of his church to the prince whose cause he had advocated with 

 such fidelity. 



In 1596 Texeira was a witness of the public abjuration of Calvinism 

 by the dowager-princess of Conde" at Rouen. The Papal legate selected 

 him to instruct and confirm the princess in her new faith ; and from 

 that time till his death he continued attached to the service of the 

 house of Conde". This engagement left him pretty much the command 

 of his own time, and he employed it principally in his favourite study 

 of genealogy. A list of his published works will be found at the end 

 of this article : here it is only necessary to remark that to the second 

 edition of his ' Genealogy of the House of Conde,' published in 1598, 

 ho added an account of the public ceremonial of the princess's re- 

 conciliation with the Roman Catholic church. 



In 1601 he published a narrative of the adventures of Don Sebas- 

 tian, ' from his expedition into Africa in 1578, till the 6th of January 

 of this present year 1601.' We have not been able to procure this 

 work ; but the following passage from Etoile's ' Journal of the Reign 

 of Henry IV.' throws some light upon the expression quoted from its 

 title-page: "Friday, the 1st of June, 1601, comes the intelligence 

 that the false or true Don Sebastian (for as yet one knows not which to 

 call him) has been sent to the galleys by order of the viceroy of 

 Naples. . . . The Portuguese maintain that he is the true Don Sebas- 

 tian : they have solicited various courts to obtain his liberty, and 

 published several works in his favour. Among others Joseph Texeira, 

 a Dominican, has undertaken several journeys to Bavaria, England, 

 Venice, and Rome, where he has disseminated his writings ; and finally, 

 he has caused to be printed at Paris a collection of prophecies current 

 among the Portuguese, which foretold all that has happened to their 

 king Sebastian." That Texeira, whose writings show him to have 

 been an accomplished scholar, whose confidential employment by 

 Catherine de' Medici is a strong testimony in favour of his abilities, 

 and whose high moral character is acknowledged on all hands, should 

 have believed the individual here mentioned to have been the real 

 Don Sebastian, appears upon first thoughts a strong testimony in his 

 favour. But L' Etoile's account of the nature of the book weakens the 

 presumption, and Texeira's inveteracy against the Spaniards renders it 

 probable that the account is correct. He is said to have declared 

 from the pulpit, when preaching on the duty of loving one's neighbour, 

 that " we are bound to love all men, of whatever religion, sect, or 

 nation even Castilians." 



Texeira died in the convent of the Jacobins at Paris, on the 29th or 

 30th of June 1604. L'Etoile, who mentions his death, says, " He has 

 iust returned from England, whither he had been sent by the king, 

 who gave him a hundred crowns for the expenses of the journey. 

 While there he had seen the king of England, to whom he presented 

 his ' Genealogy ' which he had compiled, and which was well received. 

 He was on tue eve of returning to England when he was taken ill." 



Texeira's frequent visits to England, both in the time of Elizabeth 

 and James, gave rise to suspicions of his attachment to the Romish 

 Church. For these there does not appear to have been any reasonable 

 ground ; he was opposed to the ultra-Romanist party of the League 

 in France, because it was allied with Philip II., but his religious 

 opinions never appear to have varied. 



The published works of Texeira are 1. 'De Portugalliao Ortu, 

 Regni Initiis, deuique de Rebus a Regibus universoque regno prccclare 

 estis Compendium,' Parish's, 1582, in 4to, 77 pp., very rare ; 2. ' De 

 Electionis Jure quod competit viris Portugallensibus in auguraudis 

 suis Regibus ac Principibus.' Parish's, 8vo, 1590 : this is a reprint of 

 the answer to Nonius h, Leone, printed and destroyed at Lyon in 

 1589 : a third edition was published at Paris in 1595, with the title, 

 ' Speculum Tyrannidis Philippi, Regis Castillse, in usurpanda Portu- 

 gallia;' 3. ' Exegesis Genealogica, sive Explicatio Arboris Gentilitiao 

 invictissimi ac potentissimi Galliarum regis Henrici ejus nominis IV.' 

 This work was published at Tours in 1590 ; at Leyden, with additions, 

 in 1592 ; again at Leyden in 1617, with the title, ' Stemmata Francito 

 item Navarrse Regum a prima utriusque Gentis Origine ;' all the three 

 editions are in 4to. ; 4. ' Explicatio Genealogije Henrici II. Condeas 

 Prinoipis,' Paris, 1596. An edition in 4to, and another in Svo, and a 

 translation into French by Jean de Montlyard, all appeared in the 

 same year. To the edition of 1598 was appended ' Nai-ratio iu qua 

 tractatur de Apparitione, Abjuratione, Conversione, et Synaxi lllustris- 

 simse Principis Charlotte Catharine Trimollise, Priucipissse Condesc;' 

 5. ' De Flammula, seu Vexillo S. Dionysii, vel de Orimphla aut Auri- 

 flamma Tractatus,' Paris, Svo, 1598; 6. 'Adventure admirable par 

 devers toutes autres des Siocles passds et prdsents, qui contient un 

 Discours touchant les Succes du Roi de Portugal, D. Sebastian, depuia 

 son voyage d'Afrique, auquel il se perdit en la bataille qu'il cut contre 

 les Infideles en 1578, jusqu'au 6 de Janvier present, an 1601 ;' traduit 

 du Caatillan, Svo, Paris. 



(This sketch has been compiled from the dictionaries of Bayle and 

 Moreri, and Nicolaus Antonius ; from the Prefaces to Texeira's 

 ' Genealogy of Henry IV.' and his reply to Nonius ti Leone ; and from 

 Pierre 'de 1'Etoile's ' Journal of the Reign of Henry IV.,' vol. ii., pp. 

 559-61, and voL iii., pp. 194-6, edition published at the Hague in 1761, 

 in 4 vols. Svo.) 



TEXEIRA, or TEXERA, PEDRO, a native of Portugal, one of 

 the earliest cultivators of modern Persian literature. The place aud 

 date of his birth and death are alike unknown. The author of the 

 notice of his life in the ' Biographie Universelle," says that he was 

 born in 1570, but does not mention the authority on which he makes 

 the statement. Cotolendi, who translated Texeira's work into French, 

 states that his author, " instigated by a vehement desire to become 

 acquainted with the history of Persia, passed several years in that 

 country, and having made himself perfectly master of the language, 

 devoted himself, by the advice of some able and enlightened Persians, 

 to the study of Mirkhond." Texeira himself has informed us that 

 being at Malacca, in the beginning of 1600, he embarked in the month 

 of May for the Philippine Islands, "whence he took shipping for 

 Mexico, and ultimately arrived at Lisbon on the 20th of October 

 1601. His correspondents in the East having failed to transmit to 

 him some money which he had left in their charge, he was obliged 

 to undertake a voyage to Goa to recover it. Disgusted with the sea, 

 he resolved to return overland ; and having in pursuance of his deter- 

 mination sailed from Goa, on the 9th of February 1604, and arrived 

 at Basrah on the 6th of August (being detained some time at Ormuz), ho 

 travelled by way of Meshed-Ali to Baghdad, and thence to Anna, Aleppo, 

 and Scanderoon, where he took shipping for Venice. After a short stay 

 in that city, he made the tour of Italy, crossed the Alps into France, 

 and then retired to Antwerp, where he spent his time in compiling a 

 book, which he published in 1610. After that event we again lose 

 sight of him entirely. 



His work, the first book of which, we are told by Antonio de Leon 

 Pinelo, was composed in Portuguese, but translated into Spanish, and 

 the rest written in that langiiage with a view to publication, is entitled, 

 ' Relacion de los Reyes de Persia y Ormuz : Viagi de la India Oriental 

 hasta Italia por Tierra el ano de 1604,' Antwerp, 1610. (N. Antonio 

 says it was published in 4to ; Antonio de Leon says it was pxiblished 

 in Svo.) It consists of three parts : the first is a history of the kings 

 of Persia, compiled from Mirkhond with a brief continuation, down to 

 the age of the compiler ; the second is an abridgment of the history 

 of Ormuz, by Turau-shah, one of the kings of that district (a work 

 which appears to be known in Europe only from Texeira's abstract), 

 also with a continuation ; the third, an account of Texeira's overland 

 journey from India to Europe. Alfonso Lasor translated the work 

 into Italian, and inserted it in his ' Orbo Universal ' the same year in 

 which it was published ; Schikhart, in his ' Tarich, seu Series Reguni 

 Persiae,' published at Tubingen in 1628, speaks in the highest terms 

 of Texeira's learning and diligence ; Van Laet appended a Latin trans- 

 lation of Texeira's Itinerary from Ormuz to Basrah and Baghdad to 

 his 'Persia,' published at Leyden in 1633; Cotolendi published a 

 French translation of the entire book at Paris in 1681, which the 

 writer in the ' Biographie Universelle ' justly characterises as " assez 

 rnauvaise." In short, down to the time of Taveruier and Chardin, 

 Texeira appears to have been regarded as the principal authority 

 respecting Persia. The historical part of his work is now of little 



